


Finding Their Way

by plumandfinch



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 11:54:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4624386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumandfinch/pseuds/plumandfinch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hadn’t wanted to tell her and in truth, he hadn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding Their Way

He hadn’t wanted to tell her and in truth, he hadn’t.

Timothy had overheard the story at the clinic and after he was strangely silent at the dinner table, merely picking at his food, Shelagh had it out of him in no time. Tim had told her the whole thing in the rushed way he had of talking when he was upset. Patrick felt the cloud of cold sorrow tinged with guilt sweep into their warm dining room even as Shelagh reassured Tim with a hand on his shoulder and a light kiss, laid on the top of his forehead.

Tim must have been relived because he bounded to his room after dinner and then it was just the two of them, in the silence of the living room, broken only by Angela’s snuffling.

“How old is she?” she asks quietly. He sighs, unable to drag his gaze from her hand, gently stroking Angela’s soft cheek. “Patrick?”

He does not look at her. If he does, he knows he will see in her the same awful jumble of fear, guilt, and sorrow that he is certain is playing across his face. He feels so old in this silence. He hears her shift softly on the sofa and knows that his quiet is probably answering her question for him.

“Sixteen”, he finally says to the knot of his fingers. He clears his throat and says it again, louder, and this time, he can’t help but catch sight of her bottomless blue eyes. It breaks his heart, the shards of great sorrow that he sees in them.

“Oh.”

He hadn’t been there. Like Timothy, he only heard it second hand, although his version came from a harried Sister Julienne, who had pulled him into her office in the middle of his rounds. She had wanted him to know, _them_ to know really, since it seemed so close to home now. Sister Julienne had been there, when they took the baby, and he could see it in the way she held her shoulders and the deep crease that sat on her forehead that made her look so much like Shelagh. He hadn’t felt the knot in his stomach at first, a twinge perhaps, easily dismissed. But it grew with every step he took, every patient he saw, every chart, every diagnosis, every baby. And then Tim had blurted the whole sad tale out at the dinner table. As he thought about it now, waiting for Shelagh to say something more substantial than “oh”, he remembered the way she had slowly stilled, become smaller, as Tim’s story unfolded. Even when she had reassured him, comforted him and laid that soft kiss on his head, she seemed drawn into herself.

His mind comes back into the living room and he finally looks up at her face again. She is still gazing at Angela, who wriggles and coos in her lap but big, silent tears are escaping from behind her glasses. He is next to her in a second, wrapping his arm around her back and taking her hand in his. She cries in the quiet and he can’t think of a thing to say, he just holds on. It is Angela who breaks the silence, her tiny, scrunched face reddening as she begins to wail. He squeezes Shelagh’s hand and creaks up out of the sofa, into the kitchen. As the bottle warms, he looks through the hatch at Shelagh who is pacing, rocking their weeping daughter. Patrick feels the familiar pressure in his stomach, the rush of the love he has for them. He has loved Angela since the moment he stepped towards her, since he laid her in Shelagh’s arms.

He comes back into the living room and scoops Angela up. Shelagh usually goes, when it’s his turn to feed her, so she can do something else or to give them some time. Tonight she stays and rests her head on his shoulder, wrapping her arms around them both. It is quiet in the living room again, except for Angela’s greedy suckling on her bottle.

“It’s just,” she finally says, “that I am afraid that I will always feel guilty. As though we stole her.”

What can he say to the thing that is true, the thing that is the sickening fear circling his heart?

“I’m so afraid that at the end of it all, in my desire to have her, I did something awful.” Shelagh reaches out to stroke Angela’s cheek again and it is his turn to lay a soothing kiss on her forehead. She is crying again and he feels the tug of desperation; why can’t he think of anything to say?

They nestle together there in the living room for a long time. Angela finishes her bottle and coos happily in his arms. It is when she opens her tiny bird like mouth in a big yawn that makes Shelagh giggle quietly that he feels the cold recede. He gently lays her back in Shelagh’s arms. “There we are, Angel Girl, back to Mum.”

“Oh,” Shelagh whispers again, “she is ours, isn’t she.”

It is his turn to wrap his arms around his girls. “My love, I don’t know what to say or do to make us feel better – less guilty - but I promise that we will find our way. I do know that we love our girl and that we will give her everything that we can. I think that’s the place where we start.” She smiles her small, hesitant smile, snuggles into him again and he feels the last of the cold slip away. 


End file.
